Aldermen attack USA Patriot Act

September 26, 2003|By Chicago Tribune.

A City Council committee on Thursday advanced a resolution that would make Chicago the largest city in the nation to condemn the USA Patriot Act, which aldermen said is trampling the civil rights of many of their constituents.

After a heated afternoon hearing that included an appearance by U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald, the City Council's Human Relations Committee endorsed a resolution that condemned provisions of the act and urged Congress to repeal it. The full City Council will vote on the resolution on Wednesday.

More than 100 cities nationwide have adopted resolutions condemning the act, which was passed one month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Pressure on Congress to repeal or amend the Patriot Act has intensified since a recent public campaign by U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and the Bush administration to strengthen the measure. Liberals and libertarians alike have criticized the administration's efforts to broaden the government's powers under the act, which include wiretapping without a court order and indefinite detention or deportation of immigrants.

Closer to home, several Chicago aldermen in racially diverse wards said the Patriot Act has had devastating effects.

"There isn't a day that goes by where some agent hasn't picked up an individual on the streets of Devon Avenue in my ward," said Ald. Bernard Stone (50th). "I represent a ward that's 25 percent Asian, and in this particular instance, my ward is subject to seizure on the streets without warrants, without just cause, and if the attorney general is given additional powers, additional acts will occur which are certainly anti-American."

But Fitzgerald offered the only dissent of the day, arguing that much of the country is misinformed about the Patriot Act.

"There are misperceptions about what the Patriot Act does and doesn't do. Many of you would be surprised to know that the number of people who have been detained under the immigration provisions of the Patriot Act to date in the entire country is zero. Zero. Yet that's not what you hear in the public debate," Fitzgerald said.